The operations of casinos, gaming devices and gaming systems are typically tightly regulated by local, state and federal authorities. These regulations generally require a casino to maintain accurate records regarding every transaction that arises by, in or through the casino and to maintain positive levels of control over the currency transactions. For example, casinos commonly include gaming machines, such as slot machines, gaming tables or other devices, services or systems that are required by regulators to record every providing of cash thereto. Cash as used herein commonly and collectively refers to any form of financial consideration, such as currency bills issued by a governmental entity, bank credits, house credits, pre-paid accounts, such as those provided by PAYPAL™ and any other form of commonly recognized and transferable denominations of financial value. A casino patron typically exchanges cash to a casino in exchange for the opportunity of such patron (or others they may designate) to experience one or more games, products or other services provided directly or indirectly by the casino.
To facilitate the tracking and auditing of such transactions and the transfers of cash, casino system operators today often utilize point based “cards,” such TITO (“ticket in, ticket out”) cards. A TITO card essentially associates a given point value with a bearer of such card. The bearer may utilize known security techniques, such as pins and biometrics, to limit access and use of a TITO card. To use a TITO card, a patron will typically fund an account associated with the TITO card by exchanging cash for casino “points,” where the casino points may be particular to and/or redeemable by and usable at a given casino or associated with respect to one or more designated casino(s) or other goods or services providers designated by or associated with a casino. Likewise, a patron may convert “points” into “cash” at the patron's request. The exchange of “cash” for “points” and vice versa may occur at booths, at gaming machines themselves, on-line or otherwise. Regardless of how such transactions occur, gaming regulations require a tracking of each point at each instance in a transaction flow including from the instance at which a point is generated (in exchange for cash), utilized (for example, with the playing of a slots game) and/or reconverted into cash or some other form of consideration provided to a patron.
Casino operators are also commonly required to comply with various tax laws and regulations, which often impose specific reporting requirements. Such reporting requirements often require the casino operator to generate and provide to a player various tax forms regarding a player's winnings. An operator must also report such tax forms to the taxing or other regulatory authority. For example, in the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) requires an IRS form W-2G to be generated, provided to the player and reported to the IRS whenever a players' winnings from gambling activities exceed certain amounts, such as with some jackpots. Other tax forms may be required by the IRS, states, and other U.S. and non-U.S. government authorities. The generation of these tax and other forms today commonly requires the presence and assistance of a qualified casino employee at the location in the casino where the “winning” event occurred, e.g., the hitting of a slot machine jackpot by a player. The time during which such tax and other forms are generated commonly results in the gaming machine being out of commission. Accordingly, the generation of tax and other reporting forms is today a manual and time intensive endeavor for casino operators.
Typically, point tracking occurs at numerous points in a casino, including for example, in a master casino tracking system, in a slot management system (when slot machines are utilized for any given point), in TITO management systems, in Point of Sale Systems (such as those used by restaurants and retail stores located within or associated with a casino), in Property Management Systems (such as those used for lodging, recreation and similar casino related operations), at individual electronic gaming machines (“EGMs”) and otherwise. Essentially, any device or system involved in the granting, redeeming, transfer, or use of points is typically required to track each point that such device or system “touches.” Accordingly, these requirements impose a high layer of complexity and tracking on casino games and systems.
One approach for addressing these concerns has involved the use of Slot Machine Interface Boards (“SMIBs”). A SMIB commonly enables an EGM to communicate with one or more casino system servers over a network. Historically, SMIBs have provided limited functionality and limited connectivity between EGMs and other casino server systems. Common approaches often involve the use of legacy technologies, such as those that serially interconnect devices and systems using low bandwidth protocols which often do not allow data transmission rates exceeding the 19-20 Kbs range.
Further, when a dispute arises between any given EGM's accounting for a given credit and a backend system's accounting for such credit, the backend system typically will override the EGM's accounting. These architectural constraints, in turn, add to the complexity of operating casino systems and create inefficiencies and disputes, with such disputes often requiring the considerable time and attention of casino operators. Such disputes often may result in EGMs being inoperative for a given time while such disputes are being resolved thus impacting the patron's perception of the casino and the casino's bottom-line through reduced gameplay. Such systems commonly do not facilitate the providing of Internet and “app” type experiences most smart-phone and tablet computing device users have come to seek and expect.
Recently, systems have been developed which seek to provide greater functionalities in a gaming environment. One example of such a system is the Promotional Coupon System (“PCS”) described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,419,532. Per this system, a PCS server is communicatively coupled to a game voucher printer capable of printing coupons targeted to a user of a given EGM. These types of systems, however, have been limited in the type of information capable of being communicated to an EGM for presentation to a patron thereof in a tangible form as well as in the presenting of options for additional services to such patron.
Likewise, today EGMs are typically connected to a bill validator type device. Such devices are commonly configured to accept currencies from a predetermined issuer thereof, such as the United States Treasury or another national governing body, determine the value of such pre-designated currency, communicate such value to the EGM and to a casino management system which associate one or more points to the patron bearing a TITO or similar card. Commonly available bill validator systems, however, are not readily adaptable. For example, converting from US currency denominations to another government's currency denominations often requires manual reconfiguring of an EGM's firmware, or other computer code, and such bill validator systems commonly do not accept other forms of consideration or indicators of financial considerations, such as lottery tickets.
Thus, a need exists for devices, systems and methods which are adaptable, accountable, and manageable by casino operators in the providing of printed tangible items for patron uses, such as lottery tickets, W-2G tax forms, as well as the acceptance of tangible indicators of financial consideration from patrons, as provided for example in the forms of varying currencies, tickets associated with certain verifiable values, such as valid and winning lottery tickets and other forms of consideration which a patron can provide to a casino in exchange for one or more points.